Exploitation

Abstract

As Allied screening of German medical research intensified, what came to light was not the expected cornucopia of medical discoveries but an unfathomable mire of criminal atrocities. Scientific intelligence officers were shocked by how Germany ‘succeeded in focusing every aspect of scientific activity, within the framework of a planned organisation, to waging war. She was perhaps the only nation who carried out the prostitution of science to this extremity, and these facts must be taken into account in any consideration of how best to deal with German research’1 The Allied Control authorities debated whether German science and medicine should be subjected to tight control or allowed a free rein to develop, providing that weapons research was not involved.2 The House of Lords in May 1945 feared the prospect of German scientists waging a war of revenge with new secret weapons.3 The problem was whether German medicine was so compromised by war crimes that stronger corrective measures were necessary.